Elements

A collage of 24 window paintings created for the Worship space

Birthing Crone EyesThis painting was created by a process where I used gesso to attach several pieces of cloth onto a canvas and then painted on top of the cloth with oil and oil pastel. The origin of the dyed pieces of cloth is significant. Each one is the result of a non-verbal expressive practice that individuals participated in to move energy and to open to creative expression without attachment to product. The cloths were left behind, dried, and used by me in my paintings as I felt they held the energy of transformation that occurred for the individuals who used them. Dr. Clarissa Pincola Estes, Jungian analyst, PhD Anthropologist and Contadora, (a keeper of the old stories), talks about the importance of birthing the eyes of the crone as a transformation, a way of coming into full relationship with the inner seeing, the knowing down to our bones, that we are each unique, and as such we can never live merely according to the over culture.

Layers IlluminatedThis painting began with the gluing of small pieces of wood, discards and remainders from other paintings. I then added many objects collected and saved over the years of my life. The objects are aspects of my past and represent the concept of memory actualized in symbol. They are both distinguishable; a zipper, keys, figurines of women and indistinguishable; raw cotton, carcass of a frog, felt, dried flowers. They are cloaked by a piece of cloth that connects them and yet allows them to have some semblance of individuality. They are precious because they contain the matter of memory but they are rendered less precious by being cloaked and covered. I painted on top of the objects and cloth with oil and oil pastel using the colors of the transcendent divine feminine, the sunset and the sunrise, Sophia, Shekinah. Thus this painting was a process of honoring remembering, making memory sacred, and then transforming memory by not being possessed by it in the present.

Eight Breathes Reviving Persephone's Soul Out of the Forest

UndergroundI have a deep regard and respect for animal totem and medicine as part of indigenous cultures both past and present. I do not take the presence of these teachings lightly in my life. This painting is homage to the horse, and the role the horse played in my childhood. The painting is created with plastic horse figures, gesso and cloth painted in oil and oil pastel. The horse represents the underground energy of my childhood helper. Ted Andrews in Animal Speak:“ The horse brings with it new journeys. It will teach you how to ride into new directions and to awaken and discover your own freedom and power.” “ It has been associated with both burial rites and birth - with individuals riding into and out of the world.” Rosalyn Clements in Analyzing your Dreams: “ The horse is symbolic of your basic life force… the instinct to live…the unconscious energy that carries us through life. “

Omer 2014For six consecutive years I have created a painting based upon a practice known as “Counting the Omer”. The practice has ancient Biblical roots as well as contemporary adaptations. It involves a ritual counting spanning 49 days, 7x7, the time equal to the weeks of wandering in the dessert after liberation from slavery, and before receiving the revelations at Mt. Sinai. It has evolved into an intentional practice, a period of intense introspection and spiritual growth.For my paintings I have adopted the practice of connecting “Counting the Omer” to the seven principles of the Divine in Creation according to Kabbalah (these are known as the “Sefirot”). Focusing on the attributes of the Sefirot became a daily meditation and intention, resulting in the creation of what became one panel of the painting for each day. Each year, when I enter into this personal journey, I experience coming “out of the narrow place of slavery”. It is a journey from self-liberation to opening, and then to receiving. I recognize that though I enslave and liberate myself over and over, I also repetitively journey through different states of consciousness, arriving again and again at the place where I open to receive. I learn compassion for myself, and others, through accepting that it does not matter where the journey takes me, one aspect of being human is to be engaged in actively arriving.